Activist journo visits local trust

Briggs visited the trust in an effort to learn more about its many programmes, projects and campaigns as well as to learn more about the country’s gender-based violence issues.

Briggs is the founder of the Man Up Campaign, a global initiative to mobilise young people to stop violence against women and girls in their communities through music, sports and technology.

The Man Up Campaign launched during a Young Leaders Summit at the University of Johannesburg during 2010 FIFA World Cup, bringing together youth from 25 countries throughout the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Over the past two decades, Briggs has earned a reputation as one of the most respected human rights advocates in the field of journalism.
Through extensive travels in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, he has produced seminal reporting on the lives of war-affected youth and children soldiers, as well as survivors of sexual violence.

His book, Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War, won accolades in 2005, and took readers into the personal journeys of child soldiers and war-affected children in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among other countries.

He is currently working as a consultant on youth for the United Nations and advising Wyclef Jean and Yele Haiti on engaging men as advocates for gender violence prevention.

Briggs has worked for the UN Special Session on Children, Seeds of Peace, Oxfam USA, Amnesty International and the Enough Project in the DRC.